Inventio in Valladolid's College of San Gregorio
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136 Nicola Jennings 1377 Materialkonzepte zweier spanischer Grablegen im Spiegel von 84. Ceballos-Escalera y Gila, ‘Generación y semblanza’, Claus Sluters Werken für die Kartause von Champmol’, in B. p. 196. Borngässer Klein, H. Karge & B. Klein (eds.), Grabkunst und Sepulkralkultur in Spanien und Portugal. Arte funerario y cultura sepulcral en España y Portugal (Frankfurt am Main; Madrid: Vervuert, Iberoamericana, 2006), p. 95n13. 67. The Castilian convention of decorating tomb chests with narrative imagery, saints, weepers, and heraldry is demons- trated, for example, in María Jesús Gómez Bárcena, Escultura gótica funeraria en Burgos (Burgos: Diputacíon Provincial de Burgos, 1988). 68. See, e.g., K. Woods, ‘The Master of Rimini and the Tradition of Alabaster Carving in the Early Fifteenth-Century Netherlands’, in A. S. Lehmann, F. Scholten and P. Chapman (eds.), Meaning in Materials: Netherlandish Art, 1400-1800 (Leiden: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 2012), p. 62. 69. S. Nash, ‘«The Lord’s Crucifix of Costly Work- manship»: Colour, Collaboration and the Making of Meaning on the Well of Moses’, in V. Brinkmann, O. Primavesi, & M. Hollein (eds.), Circumlitio: The Polychromy of Antique and Me- dieval Sculpture (Munich: Hirmer, 2010), pp. 356-381. New Functions, 70. See, e.g., Molina de la Torre, Valladolid, pp. 40-41. The ongoing debate over the quatrain on the Ghent Altarpie- ce illustrates the difficulties inherent in evaluating medieval inscriptions. 71. Caja 7, Expt. 13, ASCT, and Caja 2, Expt. 22, New Typologies: ASCT. Villaseñor claims that construction must have been en- ded by 1431 on the basis the bull, but it seems more likely that of the bull was obtained in advance of the chapel’s completion. See Villaseñor Sebastián, ‘Nuevas aportaciones’, p. 1039. 72. See above and note 28. Inventio in 73. Nicolás Francés, to whom the Saldaña Retable is attributed, is documented as having completed the huge retablo mayor of León Cathedral by 1434, making another commission in the run up to its completion unlikely. See Sánchez Cantón, Valladolid’s Nicolás Francés, p. 9. 74. These children were Pedro Vélez de Guevara, circa 1442-1477; and Constanza Vélez de Guevara, circa 1443- 1505. 75. My thanks to Javier Martínez de Aguirre and Tom College of San Nickson, whose explanations about the construction process and possible revisions to it have been extremely helpful. 76. The shields are unlikely to have been commissioned after Luna’s return to court in 1443 as by then Saldaña had gone over to the rebels. Gregorio 77. Clementina Julia Ara Gil, ‘El siglo XV. Influencia europea y singularidad castellana’, in A. García Simón (ed.), Historia de una cultura: Castilla y León en la historia de España (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 1995-1996), p. 115. DIANA OLIVARES MARTÍNEZ 78. It may be that Pedro’s and/or Ferrando’s bones were interred in the crypt where at least five skulls have been found. UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA Only the arms of Fernán López de Saldaña and his two wives appear on the stairs leading down to the crypt. 79. García de Salazar, Las bienandanzas e fortunas, p. 58. 80. Ceballos-Escalera y Gila, ‘Generación y semblanza’, pp. 181-83 and 188-90, notes 101-9. 81. This is documented in F-6, fols. 1-42v, CSyC RAH; M-71, fols. 214-218, CSyC RAH; and M-108, fol. 14, CSyC RAH. 82. Gonzalo de la Hinojosa, Continuación de la crónica de España, ed. Feliciano Ramírez de Arellano (Vaduz: Kraus Reprint, 1966), p. 137. A Castilian dobla was worth 200 maravedis, and it was clearly considered at the time to be an extraordinary sum. 83. The right spandrel displays the arms of the Vélez de Guevara and Ayala families impaled dexter with the castle and lion of the monarchy. As this quartering is not found elsewhere in relation to Isabel Vélez de Guevara, these arms are likely to belong to Pedro, perhaps granted to him on account of the mi- litary service which led to his premature death in 1477. On this type of concession, see A. García Carraffa, Enciclopedia heráldica y genealógica hispano-americana (Madrid, 1919), 9: p. 204. These arms to do not appear on the steps leading down to the crypt. 138 Diana Olivares Martínez New Functions, New Typologies: Inventio in Valladolid’s College of San Gregorio 139 of Paris, Oxford or Cambridge, but also in Italy, Spain and Portugal.2 Moreover, the officers, ecclesiastical dignitaries and regents who founded these colleges regarded their foundations as charitable and pious ventures that would enshrine their memory.3 These privileged institutions also guaranteed their members the best conditions for work and study, provided they were prepared to tolerate the highly disciplined environment.4 In other words, colleges aimed to establish a scholarly elite. Until the fourteenth century, students lived where they could find accommodation compatible with their means. As this posed a major problem of discipline for university authorities, they decided that the long-term solution was to house them in purpose-built colleges where a strict way of life was imposed. Whereas previously classes had taken place in cloisters or in the naves and chapels of churches or cathedrals, new and specialised teaching spaces were built, and libraries became increasingly important. Wisdom was progressively building its own house. At first, extant buildings were reused as colleges, but gradually, buildings organised around a central courtyard came to be preferred, such as those founded by Robert Sorbon in Paris (1257), Walter de Merton in Oxford (1263) or Fig. 7.1 Hugo de Balsham at Peterhouse, Cambridge (1284). Over the following decades, other College of San important colleges in France and England started to erect new buildings. Gregorio, Valladolid (1488–1496), main According to Michael Kiene’s studies, the variety of local conditions resulted in multiple courtyard. different solutions.5 The common element to collegiate architecture across Europe was not unity of type or style but the desire to create a functional space. Prototypes in England, Despite the considerable quantity of colleges built across Europe in the fifteenth France and Italy appeared almost simultaneously around 1370, giving importance to century, no standard typology had been established when in the 1480s Alonso de Burgos, scholars’ lodgings, the library and, particularly after construction of the College of Spain bishop of Palencia, decided to endow his great foundation in Valladolid, the College of San in Bologna, classrooms. Functional challenges were met in similar ways, all aimed at Gregorio (Fig. 7.1). Yet, as I will show, the layout of this purpose-built Dominican college separating collective and residential spaces to guarantee silence for studying.6 differs significantly from other university buildings in late Gothic Castile. It was probably planned by the knowledgeable and experienced architect Juan Guas, who devised a new English colleges have their own special features, but even there, no model was uniformly distribution of rooms based on a ‘double-L’ structure. Moreover, in order to meet the followed. Generally, small and medium colleges were built in parts at different times, needs of the students and ensure the preservation of his own memory, Alonso de Burgos until a quadrangle—more or less square—was achieved.7 The most significant elements provided his foundation with the best artists in Castile, who lavished the college with a were the chapel and the hall. At Merton College in Oxford—whose first quadrangle was façade that truly celebrates inventio, and a magnificent decorative scheme that makes it finished in 1379—the hall was not integrated into the courtyard, but it was an integral one of the most important late Gothic buildings in Castile. element of the courtyard of New College in Oxford (1380-1400) and in Queen’s College, Inventio is one of the five steps needed to elaborate speech according to the art of rhetoric, a discipline that was essential to the education of every medieval student. It was a creative process which consisted in discovering (rather than creating ex nihilo) the most appropriate arguments in order to compose a speech that could charm, persuade or unsettle. Rhetorical notions of inventio may also help to understand the creative process that produced some of the architectural and sculptural novelties at the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid, a beautiful late Gothic building that now houses the Museo Nacional de Escultura.1 Much of the inventio identifiable at San Gregorio stems from the fact that it represents a relatively new architectural type, the university college. University colleges and architecture In the fifteenth century university colleges were private educational institutions, generally founded by prelates or town councils to meet students’ need for housing. Colleges enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in selecting their own members and managing their financial affairs. The European collegiate movement is a theme of cardinal importance Fig. 7.2 College of San for the history of medieval universities: colleges became a cornerstone for university Clemente, Bologna development during the late Middle Ages, not only in the well-known universities (1367), main courtyard. 140 Diana Olivares Martínez New Functions, New Typologies: Inventio in Valladolid’s College of San Gregorio 141 Cambridge (1448). Colleges spread in the fourteenth century to southern European universities. The evolution of French and Italian models is closer to those in Castile than the English prototypes. In 1359, the now destroyed College of Saint Martial in Toulouse was commenced, supported by Pope Innocent VI. Its regular plan included rooms on two floors around a courtyard with galleries, and it has been considered an important antecedent of the Spanish College in Bologna.8 Founded by the Spanish cardinal Gil de Albornoz in 1367 and designed for Spanish and Portuguese students, the College of Spain or of San Clemente in Bologna was a key reference for later university buildings across Europe.9 It was a new and regular building designed by Matteo Gattapone da Gubbio to meet all the needs of students.